All My Own Work

One of my projects as the Teacher Librarian (Acting) at Mary MacKillop Catholic College, Wakeley in Term 4, 2017 was to oversee the completion of the All My Own Work modules.

Every school will have their own method or approach. Some schools will require that the students complete it in their own time at home. They then will be required to submit a printout of their results module by module to the school.

Some will allocate time for the students to work independently with no presentation/s etc.

I delivered the course over one day with the Year 10 cohort in the final week of Term 4 last year. The model was that the day was split into three parts with two modules in focus for each session. This worked well for a six period day.

Each session began with a 20 minute presentation, where an overview was provided of the key concepts in each module. Short activities using mentimeter were applied with student responses submitted presented on the screen live. Two examples are below.

This was providing me with live feedback on student understanding and knowledge. Even though I was strapped for time, I was impressed.

I also think showing clips of scenes from comedy shows like Mr Bean made a difference in understanding what can be seen by some as complex ideas.

E.g. Girls were asked to identify examples of Malpractice in this clip from Mr. Bean.

Then they were divided into their house groups, where the under the supervision of a teacher they were working through their modules. I set the pass mark as 85% for each module. Learning Support Students had a modified mark of 70% but they generally managed to get to 85% as well. The supervising teacher would initial that the student had completed the module and had cited the mark on the screen.

A registry was created and then sent through to the members of the school executive for processing with NESA.

Several students were absent, with a follow up session organised two days later. One student had actually done it at home and it was merely for me to sign off their confirmation slips.

A big thank you to those who assisted me on the day!!!

I have uploaded my powerpoint slides from the day for those who may need some direction on how to organise the day.

Technology & Classroom behavior: Do they cause kids to misbehave? (Part II)

I have taken some time to sit and reflect on how we as teachers should deal with those in the classroom that engage in inappropriate use of technology.

During the past few days, I had the chance to look over at two technology policies of two schools that I am employed at casually at the moment along with their consequences.

I have also been challenged by the limited number of articles on the topic as well. I hope at some point soon that there is some research out there to guide me.

At this stage, I feel that punishment within the “pastoral” or “welfare” policy is fair provided that the behavior is covered by policy. For example, acts of cyber bullying can be dealt with under the policy because bullying involving the use of technology is the same if the bullying was to occur physically or emotionally. Cyber bullying does cause the same effects.

Obviously if a student fails to comply with instructions with their use in the classroom e.g. no music again it should be dealt with because the student has not complied with instructions.

The only time a student should be denied access to technology is if there is serious misuse of it e.g. accessing sites of pornographic and/or offensive nature. If we look at workplace expectations, serious disciplinary action can be taken if one misuses technology. In many instances it has led to loss of employment. 

If school is about preparing our youth for the workplace then we need to foster appropriate workplace practices and develop an understanding of possible consequences. It may mean that a student may loss access to technology for their learning but sometimes students need to learn the “hard way” of separating right from wrong. Access to technology is a privilege, not a right.  

Since discipline is about helping students correct their behavior – I feel that students should also be required to receive support from support staff such as counselors who can guide the student in addressing their issue. Sometimes it does go deeper and that may help the student long term as it may fix other problems affecting them at their stage of life. 

It is still an area that needs to be looked it further. As this blog entry and the previous one showsmI am glad that I have curiosity about it, which is great.

Technology & Classroom behavior: Do they cause kids to misbehave?

Being a casual teacher, this is an interesting question that I want to take some time to reflect on. Obviously the use of laptops allow for greater teaching and learning opportunities in the classroom on so many fronts whether it may be in the presentation of information or making the use of the world wide web to research for information.

As a casual teacher, I try and encourage the students to use the laptops for their learning. With many youngsters wired up to technology, it is fair that if they enjoy the technology, that should be utilized to allow them to learn. As teachers, we do need to focus on student interests if they are to learn effectively. Obviously there are some who want to opt for more traditional means of learning and I try and accommodate that too.

However I find that using the laptops in the classroom can cause students to disengage from learning and end up off task. This is a common issue that has been raised with colleagues that I work at in the various schools that I am employed at. This becomes more challenging if you are a casual teacher.

For instance, some will end up surfing the web, visiting websites not related to learning. They will listen to music from youtube and/or have music stored on their laptops, some of which contain offensive content.

Gaming has emerged as another challenge. Some have downloaded games or simply can access a website that contains games.

I have found that the only way to control the class is to effectively stand at the back of the room where the screens can be seen and moving around regularly. At the front of the room, you cannot see them so there is little point in remaining down the front at all and ensuring that they remain on task.

Then some will want to test my expectations relating to appropriate use of laptops and that of the school’s e.g. play music aloud or simply not comply with instructions even though those expectations were firmly provided.

Taking away the computers from the students may be a short term solution but then the student cannot learn. A few years ago when training as a teacher and even in my first year of casual teaching, I did that and at the end of the day the situation is not really resolved. If the task requires internet research, to sit there and doing nothing will not work. They do not learn at all and miss out on learning the information and communication skills that they will need as part of curriculum requirements.

Will conventional punishments such as a “work” detention (where the student stays back to finish the work) work? Maybe that is the effective way. If a student wastes their learning time doing recreational activities on the computer, maybe sacrificing some of that time after school might do the job. In the workplace, if we waste our time, don’t we have to make up for the time lost at some point, either directly (staying back at our desk) or doing it in our own leisure time.

I plan to answer this further in my next blog post.

ICT & Maths

I was talking to a friend last month. They are a qualified maths teacher and we discussed some challenges of using Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) in maths.

I can understand their viewpoint that traditional methods of teaching and learning such as writing on the board and students presenting their work in an exercise book is much more effective. At the end of the day students won't be tested on a computer and hence need practice in presenting their work by hand. The teacher does use a wide variety of resources such as learning kits etc to help in students develop their practical understanding.

After some personal reflection, I realise that there is more scope than ever for using ICT to help students learn.

Many students despise maths and ICT can make maths more interesting for students.

The rise of Ipads in the classroom has given opportunities for teachers to use to satisfy ICT requirements.

Last year, I was asked to identify suitable apps to support teaching and learning. This site contained a list of apps that are available for Maths. Calculators, quizzes, instructional videos are some of the apps that are available. As time progresses they will surely be refined.

And just browsing around today is helping me to identify possible resources that can help teachers. A wiki that I located has a list of resources that a maths teacher can use in a lesson. I like the fact they provide teaching resources to allow students to develop their mathematical understanding by using online sites such as Google Earth. I can even see a cross curricular link right there with Geography.